Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance (6 page)

That a man who made his living as a poisoner sought to find the key to saving lives did not strike me as odd, knowing my father’s complex nature as I did. However, I had been concerned that his investigations were leading him to question the very nature of illness itself, a highly dangerous undertaking in a world that decrees such suffering to be the will of God. But I found no indication of that in his notes. Indeed, I found precious little.

Frustrated, I put everything away again and closed the chest. Standing required all my will and strength. I was reconsidering the opiate when there was a knock at the door.

I opened it to find the captain of the condotierri. He inclined his head graciously even as his keen eyes missed nothing.

“
Buonasera,
Donna Francesca. His Eminence requires your presence.”

And he had sent the captain of his guard to fetch me? Highly unlikely unless the Cardinal had reconsidered his act of clemency toward me, in which case Vittoro Romano would not have been smiling.

“How good of you to come yourself, Capitano Romano.”

The officer made no effort to deny that his presence on so menial an errand was unusual. “There was a report of a disturbance nearby a few hours ago. I wondered if you knew anything about it.”

As he spoke, his gaze focused on my face, which, being as stiff and sore as the rest of my body, I thought must also be bruised.

“A disturbance, really? Of what sort?”

“That’s unclear, but a woman may have been accosted.”

He waited, giving me every opportunity to tell him what he had undoubtedly already concluded for himself had happened. But I had made up my mind to say nothing. Beyond the humiliation, I did not want anyone, least of all the Cardinal, to know I was aware that my father had been targeted for murder. Unlikely though it was, there was a possibility that Borgia himself might have been involved. Certainly, he was most probably the source of whatever had so tormented my father in his final weeks of life.

“How terrible,” I said. “If only there were more men such as yourself, Captain, Rome would be far safer.”

Vittoro blinked in surprise at the compliment. He was far too astute a man not to know that I was deflecting him, but neither was there anything he could do about that. At least not at the moment.

“Let us not keep Il Cardinale waiting,” I said, and stepped out of the apartment, shutting the door behind me.

The Cardinal’s apartments were on the first upper story of the palazzo facing the river. No expense had been spared in their decoration and furnishings. Parquetry floors were covered with lush carpets in the Moorish fashion, the walls displayed magnificent tapestries devoted mainly to scenes from the hunt, velvet upholstered couches and gilded tables were scattered throughout. At every turn, the palazzo announced itself to be the residence of a lord at least as powerful as any secular prince.

Vittoro left me in the antechamber decorated with murals displaying the fall of man. Unwilling to sit—and betray my soreness when I had to stand again—I sought distraction studying the scenes that, though drawn from Scripture, were imbued with earthy sensuality.

Eve in all her naked glory seemed of far more interest to the artist than did the hapless Adam, who appeared only once, in the act of receiving the fateful apple. Until then, his feckless wife was shown disporting herself beneath a waterfall, on a bed of wildflowers, and anywhere else she could show off her lush figure. The serpent made a prominent appearance, mostly leering at her. I studied the snake carefully, trying to decide whether the rumors were true that it had been fashioned to resemble a certain rival cardinal.

I was still considering that when the concealed door to the inner sanctum opened and a secretary beckoned me into the Cardinal’s presence. Borgia sat behind a desk of burled wood and inlaid marble. He looked younger than his years and appeared filled with vigor despite what had undoubtedly already been a busy day.

Watching me walk across the thick carpet toward him, Il Cardinale frowned. “What happened to you?”

“I had a fall,” I replied. “It’s nothing.”

Borgia looked unconvinced, so much so that he waved me into a chair opposite his desk. Such an unusual favor could only have been prompted by a reluctance to see me collapse in a heap at his feet.

Perched on the edge of the chair, keeping my back ramrod straight, I asked, “How may I serve you, signore?”

“You may begin by telling me how you found things in my dear cousin’s household.”

This, at least, I had expected and was prepared to answer. “Madonna Adriana gave me the kindness of an audience. I asked to
be informed of any changes, new servants and the like, and she agreed. I assured her that there was no particular cause for concern.”

I broke off and looked at the Cardinal carefully. “I hope I was correct in that, signore?” A second audience in just two days was, of course, a great honor, but it also signaled that Borgia had matters on his mind that concerned his poisoner.

“I know of no particular threat,” he said. “However—”

Ah, yes, here it came. The reason for my summons. In truth, the likely reason for my survival. The Cardinal had need of my skills.

“However,” he continued, “we live in precarious times. The Holy Father’s health is failing—”

“I heard just this morning that he is improved.”

Borgia frowned, whether at my presumption in interrupting him or because of what I said, I could not tell. “Market gossip, nothing more. Giovanni is fifty-nine years old and his constitution has never been good.”

I resisted the urge to note that the Cardinal himself was two years older than the allegedly dying Pope. Comparisons between the two men were irrelevant. Borgia was a bull of a man who seemed to thrive on excess whereas Giovanni Battista Cibo, as he had been called before mounting the Throne of Saint Peter, seemed worn down by his own indulgences. Father to at least a dozen children, would-be crusader to free the Holy Land at the same time he was in the pay of the sultan of Turkey, exploiter of the practice of simony, the selling of papal offices, in a bid to replenish his constantly emptying purse, the Pope was said to fear death and the reckoning to follow so greatly as to be willing to commit the most despicable acts in order to avoid it.

“In such times,” the Cardinal continued, “heightened vigilance is merely prudent. May I trust you to see to that?”

Solemnly, I nodded. “Of course, signore. You may trust me in all things.”

Borgia appeared less than convinced. However, for the moment he would at least pretend to believe me. “Good, then tell me what you know of the work your father was doing at the time of his death.”

I had to answer carefully, of course. On the one hand, I could not afford to expose my ignorance. On the other, I could hardly claim to possess knowledge I did not have and hope to retain the Cardinal’s trust in any measure.

“He was pursuing various alchemical interests,” I said. “Perhaps you could tell me to which you refer?”

This ploy proved less than successful. The Cardinal sat back in his chair, eyed me directly, and said, “So he did not tell you. Yet the two of you worked closely together, did you not?”

“I . . . assisted my father, yes.”

Borgia cast me a look that for a moment made me wonder if he knew more about me than he chose to reveal. For all that I had watched him in the ten years I had lived in his house, was it possible that he had also watched the poisoner’s daughter, drawn so irresistibly to her father’s trade by the darkness within her? I would have thought myself an unlikely subject for his interest but it was possible that I was wrong.

“Did he leave no records?” Borgia asked.

I swallowed against the dryness of my throat and met his gaze forthrightly. “There are records but they break off several months ago. He wrote nothing of what he was doing more recently.”

“Do you find that odd?”

I answered honestly, for once. “Yes, I do. My father believed that study and experimentation are never enough by themselves. Only
with good records can results be understood in the perspective of larger efforts.”

“A sensible approach. It stands to reason then that he did leave records, just not with you.”

I doubted that. The nature of my father’s work—which had become mine—makes it very difficult to form friendships, much less have confidants. If he would not trust me with knowledge of what he was doing, it was unlikely that he would have trusted anyone else.

“It is important that those records be found,” the Cardinal said. Again, his gaze locked on mine. “I expect you to secure them without delay.”

“I will do my best, signore, of course. But until I know what inquiry occupied my father, I cannot say with assurance that I will be able to discover whether he kept records at all, much less what he did with them.”

I hoped that the Cardinal would simply tell me what my father had been doing, assuming he himself knew. But instead he slid a folded piece of paper across his desk toward me. Opening it, I found a name—S. Montefiore—accompanied by an address in the Quarto Ebreo, the Jewish Quarter. Borgia’s interest in that area surprised me. Like every other prince of Holy Mother Church, I assumed him to be no friend of the Jews.

“Go there,” he instructed. “And when you do, remember that you go as my servant, not as your father’s daughter. Is that clear?”

No, of course it wasn’t, yet I assured him that it was entirely so.

I had risen and was being ushered out by a secretary when Borgia had a final instruction.

“Francesca,” he said, startling me by the use of my given name.

I turned so quickly that every muscle in my bruised and battered back clenched in pain. Through gritted teeth, I replied, “Signore?”

“From now on, do not go out without an escort.”

Who would watch my every move and report to the Cardinal where I went, who I met, what I did. Everything within me rebelled at the notion. Almost everything. With the memory of the attack I had suffered still uppermost in my mind, a small part of me accepted the relinquishing of my freedom. It was not, after all, as though I had a choice. Il Cardinale willed it.

“So be it, signore,” I said, and took my leave.

The entrances to the Jewish Quarter being sealed between sunset and sunrise, I had to wait until the following morning before carrying out the Cardinal’s instructions. Even then, I needed an hour’s soak in a hot bath before I could move with anything resembling ease.

My ribs still hurt acutely, but the rest of me had settled down to a dull throb. The bruise on my forehead, thankfully the only one on my face, had darkened considerably but could be covered by a swathe of my hair. However, to achieve that I had to forgo my usual braid.

I was fiddling with my hair, trying to get used to it being down, as I left my rooms. In the corridor, I all but walked into Vittoro Romano.

“Captain, what a surprise.” The more so because he was not wearing his usual uniform. Instead, the captain of the condotierri was
dressed in a nondescript doublet and hose such as a modest merchant or tradesman might wear.

“
Buongiorno,
Donna Francesca,” he said with a smile. “I trust you are feeling better this morning?”

“Yes, certainly. May I ask why you are here?”

“You have an errand to run outside the palazzo, is that not so?”

Of course it was, just as it was true that the captain knew of it and of Il Cardinale’s order that I have an escort. However, I had not anticipated that he would provide that escort himself.

“I thought you would assign someone to accompany me,” I said as we walked down the corridor toward the stairs. Indeed, I had hoped to steer him toward someone young and callow, likely to be uncertain how to deal with a woman of authority and therefore easy to manage.

Vittoro seemed to be following my train of thought for he smiled, a rare disturbance of the normally somber folds of his face. “I haven’t been to the Jewish Quarter in quite awhile. I am curious to see what is happening there.”

I understood what he was referring to. In the almost three months since their most Catholic Majesties, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, issued their edict expelling all Jews from their kingdom, tens of thousands of desperate refugees had streamed into other parts of Europe, including Rome. There, as in other cities, they had to cram into the already overcrowded ghettos where increasingly the Ebreos were forced to live. Conditions in the ghetto, situated on marshy tidal land beside the Tiber, had never been good, but it was said that now they were rapidly becoming deplorable.

“Do you know what we will find at the address the Cardinal gave me?” I asked as we stepped out onto the street. Rain showers during the night had washed away the dust and grime from the
cobblestones and left the air cooler than in recent days. A light breeze carried the scent of the lemon and olive orchards just outside the city.

“I do not,” Vittoro replied promptly enough that I believed him. “However, I am certain that whatever may be there, you will deal with it properly.”

The frank expression of his confidence surprised me. I did not know the captain well, having only observed him during my years growing up in the palazzo. But I was aware that he had been friends with my father. The two men had played chess together regularly.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. “I will do my best.”

With Vittoro at my side, the walk down to the Sant’Angelo district where the ghetto was located was uneventful. Even so, I could not shake off my sense of apprehension. At the entrance to every shadowed alley and lane we passed, I relived the moment when my attackers sprang out at me. By the time we neared our destination, my palms were damp and I was breathing rapidly.

“Do you need to rest?” Vittoro asked. He took my arm lightly to steady me.

“No,” I assured him. “I am fine.” I looked ahead to the walls rising before us and the rooftops beyond. Despite the sunny day, a grim shadow of despair seemed to hang over the ghetto. I could not wait to be done there.

“I would just like to finish with this,” I said.